“We worked very hard and reduced that by $1.6 billion,” he said. “We are taking a thoughtful and fiscally-responsible approach that is working.”

The Ontario government will release a new budget later this spring, and remains on track to return to balanced budgets by 2017-18, as promised, Sousa said.

“We have a path to balance,” Premier Kathleen Wynne added in the legislature Tuesday.

Ontario’s annual operating deficit is higher than that of any other government in Canada, including the federal government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli said that while the deficit may be lower than the Liberal government originally projected, it is still higher than in previous years.

“They’re absolutely going the wrong way,” Fedeli insisted. “It was a $9.2-billion deficit two years ago, it grew to $10.5 billion last year and now has grown to $10.9 billion this year.” Fedeli said the government has yet to produce a detailed plan on how it will balance the province’s budget in the 2017-18 fiscal year.

“They show a made-up revenue number, they show a made-up expense number ... and they magically add up to a zero — a balanced budget,” Fedeli said.

In his speech to the Toronto Region Board of Trade Tuesday, Sousa said his government is meeting its fiscal goals by transforming public programs, managing public sector worker compensation costs and maintaining revenue streams through initiatives such as those that counter the underground economy.

“We have the lowest rate of per capita expenditures of any government in Canada,” Sousa said.

NDP MPP Catherine Fife said Sousa’s speech was more notable for what he didn’t mention such as current cuts to education and health.

“The minister didn’t put anything new to the people of this province today, nothing to help ordinary Ontarians and nothing to grow the economy,” she said.